Nader Urges Gingrich to Put Congressional Materials on the
Internet in Addition to Starr Report

Responding to House Speaker Newt Gingrich's announcement today that
independent counsel Kenneth Starr's report on President Clinton would be
placed on the Internet, Ralph Nader urged Speaker Gingrich to put the most
important and useful congressional documents on the Internet as well.

"Speaker Gingrich puts the Starr report on the Internet but keeps
off the Internet the most important congressional documents," Nader
said. "Gingrich shouldn't hide the most important congressional documents
from the American people."

"Speaker Gingrich should keep his promise to give citizens the
same access to congressional documents as Washington lobbyists," said
Gary Ruskin, director of the Congressional Accountability Project.

In November, 1994, Speaker Gingrich made the following promise: "[W]e
will change the rules of the House to require that all documents and all
conference reports and all committee reports be filed electronically as
well as in writing and that they cannot be filed until they are available
to any citizen who wants to pull them up. Thus, information will be available
to every citizen in the country at the same moment that it is available
to the highest paid Washington lobbyist." (November 11, 1994 speech
to the Washington Research Group Symposium, reprinted in Contract With
America p. 188.)

But Gingrich has not kept his promise. Many of the most valuable congressional
documents are rarely available on the Internet, including the most important
drafts of bills, such as committee prints, discussion drafts, chairman's
marks, and manager's marks.

In addition, Congress has not made available on the Internet a non-partisan
searchable database of congressional voting records, draft committee and
conference reports, texts of committee mark-ups and amendments, and congressional
office expenditure reports. Few committee hearing transcripts and Congressional
Research Service reports have been placed on the Internet.